Below Surface Rests Tiny Hint Of Real Holtz

It occurred some time ago, when Holtz was still an immensely popular folk hero among the media, the anoretic Dutch Boy who was to plug the Faustian leaks and rebuild the glory of Rockne, Leahy and Parseghian.

Now, Holtz is under fire, shadowed by NCAA allegations of wrongdoing that come on top of charges in the media he was uncaring for injured players, turned a blind eye toward steroid use and recruited hooligans to intimidate opponents.

Now, as he prepares his team for a repeat bout with top-ranked Colorado in the Orange Bowl Tuesday night, there are those who say he should step down. He has become such a lightning rod for controversy that even the tint of wrongdoing without proof threatens to tarnish that oh-so-golden Notre Dame image.

But back then-2 1/2 years ago-all was rosy as Holtz was about to embark on what he didn`t know would be his national championship season.

In his office, among the subdued hues, the football memorabilia and the giant-sized bottles of antacid he keeps as clutter on his desk-and where he chews out his coaches, charms a cynical reporter or woos a hot recruit-Holtz animatedly engaged an internationally known social psychologist.

For someone who brags he finished 234th out of 278 in his high school class and was told by academic counselors he never would make it in college, Holtz seized the interest for more than an hour of Ellen Berscheid, one of the leading minds in the nation in her field.

His mission-for which he volunteered at the request of Howard, then chairman of the psychology department at Notre Dame and now a professor-was to persuade Berscheid to give up her professorship at the University of Minnesota and accept a distinctive appointment to an endowed chair on the Notre Dame faculty.

``He was very instrumental in making Notre Dame attractive to Ellen,``

recalls Howard. ``He talked to her about how Notre Dame takes values-philosophical, moral and religious values-very seriously and tries to make it a part of everything the university does.

``He talked about how that was true with regard to football as well-that everyone, whether he or she is recruited as a football coach or an endowed chair at Notre Dame, hears basically the same line from the upper

admnistration: We`re looking for excellence whether in terms of scholarship or winning football games, but what will really get you in hot water is if you do something immoral, unethical or unprofessional.

``If you have to do that to win,`` he said, ``you`re going to lose anyhow at Notre Dame because that`s antithetical to the Notre Dame position.``

Holtz denied one of the allegations-that he passed along $500 through Leroy Gardner intended for a player.

He partially acknowledged two others. He said he gave $250 to a player for a correspondence course so he could get back into school after flunking out and $20 to a recruit who had lost his wallet.

Holtz said he understood the student to whom he gave the $250 would be ineligible academically ever to play football under Minnesota standards even if he did win back admittance to the university. He said he took the actions for ``humanitarian`` reasons.

His critics scoff. They say it is a sorry explanation, the same kind of nonsense mouthed by more serious NCAA evil-doers.

But when Howard considered the allegations and Holtz`s response, he thought back to the conversation between the football coach and the psychologist 2 1/2 years ago. (She had rejected offers from Yale and Vanderbilt in favor of Notre Dame, but when Minnesota offered her an endowed chair, she stayed there.)

Howard also thought of the letters he knew Holtz periodically sent to an 87-year-old member of a Roman Catholic religious order, Brother John.

Holtz never had met him, but he heard of Brother John`s ardor for the Irish football team and had his secretary type a short note on occasion, to which Holtz would pen a personal postscript and sign.

``Those notes just made Brother John`s day,`` said Howard.

``It`s funny, but when I heard Holtz explain the allegations, it made him sound almost like a saint-helping a former player get on with his life. He focused on the altruism of his acts.

``If things are the way Holtz says they are, he violated the letter of the law but in a spirit that we would all endorse.``

Howard can`t be sure, of course, but because he knows personally Holtz went out of his way to help his department and goes out of his way to comfort an elderly man he never has met, he wants to believe Holtz must be a generous, caring man who was intent on helping, not gaining a competitive advantage by flouting NCAA rules.

``When did you ever hear of a football coach taking time to help an academic department in recruiting?`` asks Howard.